Part of any fibre enthusiast's hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.
I love knitting/crocheting with almost any squishy extra-fine merino yarn but my absolute favourite is the now-sadly-discontinued Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK. EFM is lovely to work with; it shows off textured stitches beautifully and never, ever pills in wear. I have a small hoard left - mainly in my favourite colours of purple, blackberry, grey. I can't quite bring myself to use any of the hoarded yarn yet but the anticipation of doing so is very enjoyable!
Top of the list in my Devil's Spawn category of yarns to avoid is Rowan Kidsilk Haze, narrowly beating any yarn containing bamboo (bamboo is slimy stuff; handling it makes me shudder with that chalk-on-a-blackboard feeling). I seem to be the only knitter on the planet who hates Kidsilk Haze. It's itchy to wear, horrible to work with and an absolute bugger to frog if you've made a mistake. Oh, and for what you get, it's ridiculously expensive.
LOL sorry, have to disagree with you on the Kidsilk :) and the bamboo, as it goes :-D but you're not the only one I've read today thinks that Kidsilk is the devil's work :-D
Posted by: Vivianne | Monday, March 28, 2011 at 05:06 PM
You are not alone with your loathing of Kidsilk Haze. I turned down a commission from Simply Knitting because it was in Kidsilk Haze....
Posted by: Heather Cawte | Monday, March 28, 2011 at 05:07 PM
Jaeger EFM was my all time absolute favourite yarn and my remaining stash is hoarded! Every so often I find myself having a quick look on ebay to see if any is coming up but have resisted buying so far....
Posted by: Yvonne | Monday, March 28, 2011 at 07:28 PM
No, I'm with you on the KSH, as you know... Couldn't find any to photograph so I'm just going for a "difficult to place" yarn for my post, if I ever get it finished!
Posted by: Liz | Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:35 PM
I've seen a couple posts about people with KSH as their favorite yarn...interesting...
Posted by: AC | Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 02:46 AM
Love your post for Knit and Crochet Blog Week (which I'm also participating in this year!) How sad that your favorite merino was discontinued. Have you found something you like to replace it yet?
Posted by: CrochetBlogger | Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 03:12 AM
@ CrochetBlogger I've found a couple of replacements that are nearly as nice, but neither of them comes in a such a wonderful range of colours. They're Debbie Bliss Rialto DK and James Brett Pure Merino DK.
Posted by: Wibbo | Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 02:53 PM
I will never ever knit in KSH or anything similar, loathe the stuff. EFM was my fave too, Rialto is the nearest I have found, but it falls short of the lovely Jaeger. Another one which is good is Coldharbour Mill's own yarn? but not AS good.
Posted by: jill | Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 12:03 AM